By Henry Pierson Curtis
Orlando Sentinel
KISSIMMEE, Fla. — How an Osceola County Jail inmate obtained a loaded handgun remained unanswered Tuesday as sheriff’s officials investigated an attempted jail break Monday evening.
Such incidents are apparently so rare that the National Institute of Corrections and other national organizations serving the jail and prison systems do not track them.
“It’s really extraordinary to have one within the confines of a jail. Nobody’s supposed to have a gun inside,” said a prison researcher who is not authorized to speak publicly and did not want to be identified. “That’s why all of those gun lockers are outside. You don’t want to take anything inside that inmates can get their hands on.”
Sometime before 7:20 p.m. Tuesday, Osceola jail inmate Angel Santiago pulled out a gun from his clothing and threatened to kill a corrections officer escorting him back to his cell, according to the sheriff’s spokeswoman Twis Lizasuain.
Santiago, 28, forced the officer into a medical bay and ordered the man to exchange uniforms with Santiago so his hostage looked like an inmate and Santiago looked like a guard, according to a report of the incident.
Confronted by other officers who came to their colleague’s rescue, Santiago fought back until he was disarmed. The freed officer said Santiago had threatened to “blow my head off,” the report stated.
Santiago does not make idle threats of violence, according to court records and psychiatric evaluations. He is currently serving two life sentences over shooting a robbery victim in the stomach that he had threatened to kill, records show.
On Tuesday, he was in the Osceola County Jail awaiting trial and a possible third life sentence for armed robbery, records show. In that 2006 case, he is accused of threatening to kill two St. Cloud travel agency clerks and robbing them of $3 cash and all of their jewelry.
That robbery was one in a series committed in 2006 in Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties by Santiago and his cousin Roberto Santiago, who is now serving 50 years in prison for his part in the shooting of the Orange County robbery victim, according to court and police records. The robberies began after Santiago was sentenced in 2003 to three years in prison for robbing and beating an elderly clerk in an Orlando travel agency, court records show.
In a related case, Santiago confessed to detectives that he conducted a home invasion in Seminole County where he ordered the homeowner’s 14-year-old son to get on the floor while Santiago and his cousin got away with a car trunk full of guns.
The Santiagos fled Central Florida and were arrested in Maryland, apparently on their way to New York where Angel Santiago had an apartment in Yonkers, records show.
A ninth-grade drop-out, he has been in and out of jails and prisons since his early teenage years in Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland, records show.
“He reports his medical history is notable for having been shot in three places in an incident in Puerto Rico in which his brother was killed,” a report states. ."He was shot in the head but the bullet apparently did not enter the skull. He reportedly had been treated previously for ‘anger.’”
Court records and psychiatric evaluations show Santiago has a long history of violence and self-destructive behavior. He is serving two life sentences for armed robberies, including one in which he shot a victim in the stomach after threatening to shoot to kill, records show.
Prescribed psychiatric drugs in jail, Santiago has “a long history of unpredictable behavior in both the Orange County Jail as well as during his current incarceration in the Osceola County Jail,” court records states. The unpredictable behavior included trying to hang himself on Jan. 7, 2008, jumping off a sink on Jan. 8, 2008, cutting himself with a razor on Jan. 15, 2008 and then cutting himself with a screw and swallowing it on Jan. 18, 2008, records state.
Psychologists who evaluated him remain undecided on whether Santiago is feigning mental illness. One noted that Santiago claimed to be Jesus Christ and that his self-mutilation may have been a means of drawing attention.
One of the psychologists, Leonard J. Skizynski wrote after examining Santiago that he “appeared to be displaying a very poor imitation of a psychotic person.” He concluded after noting Santiago faces three possible life sentences, that “three is no indication of any psychotic disorder and based on his presentation and reported history it is extremely unlikely that there is any psychosis.”
Santiago faces new charges of Aggravated Assault with a Firearm on a Corrections Officer, Armed Robbery, Kidnapping, Attempted Escape, Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon, Possession of Contraband in a Correctional Facility, Impersonating a Corrections Officer, Person Engaged in a Criminal Offense with a Weapon and Resisting with Violence.
The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office is not releasing information on its investigation until it determines how Santiago obtained the gun he used to try to escape. The jail holds about 1,200 inmates over seen by about 170 corrections officers. The county department has a total of 291 employees.
Copyright 2009 Orlando Sentinel